Island First Nation hopes to harvest ocean’s heat for community development. A $40,000 study is underway to assess thermal energy system.
From the rocky shores of Beecher Bay near Metchosin on Vancouver Island, the Pacific Ocean may appear cold and forbidding, but the Sci’anew First Nation and Trust for Sustainable Development Inc. are musing whether it has the energy to heat a new community development.
The trust and Sci’anew, also known as Cheanu, are partners in a proposed new town development called Spirit Bay, where they are proposing to build a thermal energy plant that would use a heat-exchange system to harvest some of the solar energy absorbed by the ocean to supply a district-heating system.
Photo: ‘Heat-Exchange System‘ by Mal Booth under the license CC BY-NC-SA 2.0